One or more robotic devices and/or other actors can move throughout a storage environment to perform actions related to the storage and shipment of items. One example storage environment is a warehouse, which may be an enclosed building having rows of storage racks on which items may be stored. In some cases, multiple inventory objects (e.g., boxes, packages, and/or cases) may be stored on pallets, and the pallets may be stacked vertically. As such, an item stored in a warehouse may be an inventory object and/or a pallet of inventory objects. The warehouse may also include a loading dock used for loading and/or unloading items from delivery trucks or other types of vehicles.
A warehouse management system (WMS) may be employed to facilitate operations within the warehouse environment. For example, the WMS can track the identity and location of items stored in and moved around the warehouse environment. One approach to tracking items in the warehouse uses barcodes attached to storage locations in the warehouse (i.e., “storage-location barcodes”) and barcodes attached to items (i.e., “on-item barcodes”). For instance, each storage rack in the warehouse may be marked with a respective storage-location barcode, and the WMS may store, for each storage-location barcode, an indication of a physical location corresponding to the storage rack within the warehouse (e.g., location coordinates). To move a particular item to and/or from a particular storage location, an operator may scan the on-item barcode and the storage-location barcode when the item is deposited or removed from the storage location. The operator may then upload the two scanned barcodes to the WMS to record the deposit or removal of the item at the storage location.